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NATIONAL UNITY 

BY ^).' 

George E; Ide 

PBBSIDBNT OF THB HOME LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 



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An Address Delivered 

AT THB 

NINTH ANNUAL CONVENTION 

OP 

THE HOME LIFE AGENCY ASSOCIATION 

New York, January 16 and 17, 1917 



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NATIONAL UNITY. 



At the annual meetings of your Association, it has been 
my privilege for many years to address you, and you have been 
kind enough to request me to continue that practice. It has 
not been my habit to speak upon technical life insurance sub- 
jects because those naturally take up the greater part of your 
time in your other sessions, but it has seemed fitting to me 
at each of these annual gatherings, where we have represen- 
tation from all parts of the country, to discuss some question 
of broad and general interest bearing upon our attitude and 
conduct in our relations with our fellow-men. 

Possibly no body of men comes in closer touch with the 
American people than the Life Insurance representatives in 
the field, and that contact reaches out to men of every locality 
and of every station in life. What can be then of greater 
importance than that these representatives should thoroughly 
understand the underlying principles of our national life and 
appreciate what is needed to promote the nation's best wel- 
fare? These principles may be elementary and even self-evi- 
dent, but how often do we forget the importance of simple 
truths in the maze of sophistry which is spread out to ensnare 
us by wily vendors of false panaceas for the cure of all na- 
tional ills. 



The heat of the recent campaign is past. The nation has 
recorded its decision. Therefore, we may now as loyal citizens 
dispassionately discuss, in terms of perfect frankness, present 
national tendencies and problems, without running any risk 
of being misunderstood or misinterpreted. 

Every man of serious mind and every student of the 
world's progress must realize that there are disquieting ele- 
ments in the present situation and that to guide our nation in 
attaining and retaining its proper position in the world, we 
need now as never before far-sighted wisdom and clear judg- 
ment. 

Our country is a federation of sovereign States working 
together for the good of the whole body politic, united for 
mutual aid in the furtherance of the common good; a federa- 
tion formed to overcome the centrifugal and disintegrating 
forces of self-interest and to promote unity and co-ordination. 
The bonds which hold us together at times seem to tighten and 
again to relax but harmony is the basis of our national system. 

"Classes are unknown in the land." That is our boast, but 
the fact is that, in the growth of national unity one of the 
worst obstacles is the existence of classes, or groups, if that 
word is preferred, and the disputes between them. The very 
rich and very poor, the educated and uneducated, the employers 
and employed, these are some of the classes which exist and 
always will exist. These distinctions are necessary in our 
complex life, but the aim of American democracy is that 
there shall be nothing in our system which makes it impossible 



for any individual to move freely from one class to another. 
We aim to prevent, as far as possible, individual retrogression 
and to place personal advancement within the reach of every- 
one on a basis of individual merit and accomplishment. In 
this sense "classes" rigidly and permanently established do not 
exist. Every day we hear of men who, by reason of individual 
worth, have risen in the social scale and we also hear of others 
who have fallen to a lower estate. The American idea is that 
this movement of the individual from one class to another shall 
be absolutely unrestricted. That is what is meant by "free- 
dom" and "equality." Any statute of the State and any reg- 
ulation of any "class organization" which hampers the in- 
dividual in the exercise of thrift, industry and persistency 
or compels him to curtail his hours of labor or lose his personal 
freedom to work, may be good for the class as a whole, but is 
un-American and acts as a brake upon individual freedom. 
It is equally improper, in the absence of a voluntary contract 
arrangement, to compel the individual to work against his 
will. 

This general subject has been so prominently before us of 
late that a rehearsal of recent events is not necessary, but if 
we analyze carefully these conflicts between the various 
"classes" wa find that the fundamental cause of difference is 
that the interest of the "class" is placed ahead of everything 
else, and individual freedom and the common welfare are sub- 
ordinated. If, in these conflicts, the old-fashioned ideas of our 
forefathers (the ideas of individual freedom, of mutual con- 
cession and of united effort for the nation's welfare) could be 



substituted for the modern tendency toward placing the 
"class" above the 77ian and the "class" above the nation, great 
progress would be made out of our difficulties. Organizations 
we should not discourage, but every class leader should recog- 
nize that the body that he represents is, and must be, sub- 
ordinate to the greatest of all organizations, the "nation." We 
must have union and harmony between these groups. This can 
only be obtained if paramount to all class interests we keep 
ever before us the true American ideal, the achievement of the 
greatest good for all. 

Another factor inimical to national unity is the clash of 
local interests. In a country covering such vast territory, the 
interests of its various sections are naturally diverse. Rivalry 
and competition betwesn these sections are unavoidable, but 
when local pride and local selfish interest overshadow national 
pride and national interest then Am.erican unity is in peril. A 
most striking example of this feeling is provided in the con- 
tinued agitation of the question of compulsory local invest- 
ment of Life Insurance funds. In the discussion of this ques- 
tion with a very high officer of one of our States when the state- 
ment was made that Railroad Investments benefit all sections 
of the country, he frankly stated to me that his commonwealth 
did not care anything about the development of the railroads; 
that his State was not dependent upon Interstate transporta- 
tion facilities ; and that what it wanted and would insist upon 
were local investments in real estate loans, city, town and state 
bonds, or other securities which were absolutely and unequivo- 
cally local in 'their character. This is an example of local 



spirit raised to its highest degree. Then again, our method 
of electing representatives at Washington from the various 
sections of the country and the provision that those represen- 
tatives shall be residents of the section in which they are 
elected creates in our Federal Legislative bodies a condition 
which makes it extremely difficult to secure from those bodies 
legislation on broad national lines. A Congressman, to be re- 
elected, must satisfy his local constituents, and much of our un- 
wise legislation is a natural sequence of this method of choice. 

Then again, it is difficult for the different sections of the 
country to understand each other. The view of the farmer of 
the West and the banker of the East, of the manufacturer of 
New England and of the importer of New York is in each case 
naturally based primarily upon his own salfish requirements, 
especially when the question of taxation or some other matter 
affecting his local interest comes up for consideration at Wash- 
ington, and the unscrupulous politician has naturally done all 
he can to encourage a sentiment of sectional rivalry and jeal- 
ousy. The East has only a superficial knowledge of the ideas 
of the West and South, and these latter localities, except in the 
most general way, are not informed as to the methods and 
ideas which prevail in the financial centres of the East. In the 
consideration of any broad national policy, we see these sec- 
tions arrayed, each against the other, on strictly geographical 
lines. If a tax is to be imposed, each tries to throw the bur- 
den upon the other. If a national improvement is to be made, 
each demands that his section shall have the lion's share. If 
the question of our national attitude in foreign relations is be- 



fore Congress, enthusiasm cannot be aroused unless local ad- 
vantages can be shown. We have but to study the debates and 
votes on the tariff, on national preparedness, on national im- 
provements, on the income tax, on the Mexican question, on 
foreign relations, on railroad regulation, to see that the above 
exhibition of self-interest is so universal that it hardly nesds 
to be stated. Is it to be wondered that we often fesl that in 
consequence our national unity is in danger? 

It is a very simple matter to state conditions which we know 
exist; it is a very difficult matter to offer a proper solution. 
The contest between the various classes and the rivalry be- 
tween the various sections to which we have referred is exactly 
similar to the old dispute between the members of the body, 
described by St. Paul. The head, the foot, the hand, the eye 
and the ear entered into the same struggle under motives of 
self-interest which we see existing between the different States 
and between the different groups of our society, and the situa- 
tion cannot be more tersely summed up than in the statement 
in the Epistle that "whether one member suffer, all the mem- 
bers suffer with it, or one member ba honored, all the members 
rejoice with it." There can be no segregation even in thought 
of the various States and of the various groups without a ser- 
ious loss to the whole body, and there must be closer mutual 
acquaintance and knowledge and a finer spirit of concession 
between these warring factors, if we are to maintain the deli- 
cate equilibrium of our national federation. Possibly one great 
difficulty in bringing about such a basis of coalition is that, 
under our national government, the ordinary citizen is not 



made to feel in the slightest degree that he owes anything to 
his country. He does not know that he contributes in any 
way to the federal expense ; he is relieved as far as possible of 
all of the burdens of direct taxation ; he is called upon for little 
service of a civil character and no military service. In short, 
he finds himself the happy recipient of the nation's favors and 
protection without giving any proper return. In consequence 
of this, as is apt to be the case, he has no enthusiasm over the 
dispenser of such bounties ; he feels no sense of obligation and 
little sense of patriotic loyalty. When a crisis arises, it has 
always been found, up to the present time, that the American 
nation is full of loyalty and full of patriotism. The sentiment 
is there but cannot express itsslf properly and effectively be- 
cause it has no instruments with which to work. Often this 
or that remedy is suggested to correct the evils of which we 
are speaking, but thes3 remedies most frequently apply only to 
some specific trouble. We must look to the basic principles if 
we wish to carry out the real promise of our forefathers. In 
an address recently delivered in this city by a speaker from 
Chicago, the subject was tersely presented in the following lan- 
guage : "No great nation can be a mere collection of persons 
born or living within certain geographical limits. A great na- 
tion must be a social unit, moved consciously or unconsciously 
by common motives and by an instinctive loyalty to common 
ideals. Nationality is a spiritual and psychic rather than a 
physical fact." We associate the words spirituality and soul 
with purely religious discussions, but it is no exaggeration, 
nor is it an impractical suggestion, to state that the only basis 
of true national unity must be a unified national soul. An ex- 



ample beyond parallel has been recently offered in the Euro- 
pean War, where we have found a nation, often misunderstood 
by Anglo-Saxons, pre-eminent in its intellectuality, mercurial 
in its temperament, solidified under the present pressure to a 
nation with a single soul. Nothing else can explain the cour- 
age, the persistency, the cheerfulness and the patience of the 
French nation under suffering. It is something of this sort 
which the American nation must cultivate and which the Amer- 
ican nation must possess if we are to have real national unity. 
Materialism runs rife in a young and prosperous nation and 
our isolation from the present conflict has increased that ten- 
dency. It is well for us, in our serious moments, to keep ever 
before us the higher philosophy, the higher ideal, for "what 
shall it profit a man," or a nation, "if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul?" 




President 
January, 1917. 



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